Historical Marker
Tijeras Canyon
Tijeras, Bernalillo County · New Mexico
The colonial name on the panel belonged to a grant made to be a shield. On February 12, 1763, Antonio Baca led nineteen settlers, genízaros and mestizos among them, up from Albuquerque to San Miguel de Carnué, a buffer against raids through the canyon. Apache attacks drove them out; in 1771 the governor annulled the grant and ordered the village razed. In 1819 a new grant placed seventy-three families in the canyon, and its boundary, from Carnué to La Tijera, is the first official use of the name the village now carries.
What the plaque says
Official Scenic Historical Marker Tijeras Canyon This pass between the Sandía and Manzano Mountains has been a natural route for travel be- tween eastern New Mexico and the Río Grande Valley since pre- historic times. Known as Cañon de Carnué in the Spanish colo- nial period, it takes its present name from the village of Tijeras, Spanish for "scissors".
Where it stands
35.08035, -106.38704 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Petroglyph National Monument — 21 miSome 24,000 images pecked into the dark basalt of Albuquerque's West Mesa, protected in 1990 and then crossed by a city boulevard.